The Bactra Review   Sleeping with Extra-Terrestrials
Arachne was actually a hoax perpetrated by the science fiction writer John Sladek, in a book he wrote as ``James Vogh'', Arachne Rising: The Search for the Thirteenth Sign of the Zodiac (New York: Dial Press, 1977). Strangely enough, he was surprised that people took it seriously --- so much so that he wrote another book on astrology under that pen name. His later announcements that he was making it all up have done little or nothing to impede Arachne's progress; indeed some astrologers now make use of fifteen signs, including Arachne.